i have a problem (for a two months now) with my wifi adapter on laptop.

When i run my laptop and boot windows 7, the adapter just dont see my wifi router. (setting of the router is correct - other devices dont have any problem to connect to it, and laptop has same problem with other routers)

i have to wait like 5 minutes till the system sees my wifi and than i click to connect, but it starts connecting and than shows unable to connect.

I do this 10 times and after sometime (approximately 15 min.) in finaly connects and stays connected till i restart the laptop (even 10 hours in row).

This shows it might be the problem with the system or drivers (i updated it and its the same problem).

and the same problem is on windows xp sp3, and windows 7 sp1...

I think it might be the hardware issue but wierd think is, that it is working just fine after it connects.

have tried different wireless settings? such as the wireless mode bgn, try set it to 1 fixed mode only. then turn off the authentication, wep, try using fixed ip address instead of dhcp.

if changing all those settings and you still have same problem then it it must be hardware problem. try to open up your laptop and check if the card is seated correctly, antenna connected properly. or better yet, if your notebook is still within warranty period contact the notebook's support and let them check it for you.

I bought a couple of different USB network adapters to fix this but AGN 5100 drivers would keep loading and seem to cause them all to constantly disconnect. My ASUS Win 7 Ultimate 64 Bit machine kept disconnecting after deleting the AGN 5100 driver and after a restart the Driver would reload it self and the connections were alway dropping whether I constantly deleted or disable the 5100. I did not want to remove 5100 and I finally ended up with a Netgear WNA3100M that I hoped would work well with my Netgear DGN3500 modem/router. Same problems after a couple of days. So I did a WPS connection of myWNA3100M which maxed it's speed and seemed more stable for a day. Looked and the deleted 5100 was back so I Connected it from the Network and Sharing Center, Change Adapter Settings, Highlight the 5100 that was shown with a Red X, Brings up menus at the top and Select Connect To. My network was there and I put in the password instead of trying WPS, WPA2 personal with TKIP because my Router did not like the AES selection and told me so. BOOM. Now I have both the 5100 and my Netgear WNA3100M connected all of the time even after restarts. No disconnect from the network and no 5100 seemingly disconnecting my WNA3100M. That's right, Network and Sharing Center shows both Wireless Adapters connected to my wireless network and the Internet. Both are usually 300 Mbps despite my router being in my Basement in an old house. Everything is faster than ever and since my Netgear WNA3100M is low profile and I use an extended life battery that sticks out a bit, I don't even notice it.

BTW, the 5100 came to life a couple of times after Windows updates but never stayed alive. Also, with this dual configuration of both adapters working, if I remove the Netgear WNA100M USB Adapter, the AGN 5100 falls right off line on my ASUS G60VX machine. Plug it back in and it fixes itself and reconnects both adapters. Don't know if it's the same with other brands and models but I seem to see this same or similar problem with a lot of different laptops in many different kinds forums. This fix has been working for 3 weeks now and none of my other fixes lasted more than a couple of days. My speed with both Internet Explorer 9 and Google Chrome is faster with www.speedtest.net and response with both of the browsers just changing and reloading web pages.

We have 350 x HP 620 laptops (we are a school) and they came with a 2.4ghz Realtek card. Given the number trying to log in to the access points together with noisy environment we upgraded the Realtek Card with an Intel 5100 agn card like yours.

The strange thing is this. We asked HP to assist locating these chips - they said $80AUD per card.! The laptops are two years old - not worth it really. We found some on ebay - $US13 each - and we purchased 30 of them. They worked perfectly - this batch has not had an problem - they connect really quickly - they stay connected, they are just fantastic.

We then purchase 330 more from the same company ($US4500!!!) and we can not get any of them to connect longer than a few minutes at a time. We have tried driver updates, changing settings, changing our wireless network settings. What ever it took we did. Nothing, the original 30 keep connecting to anything and everything and the next batch keep failing.

The new ones seem to have a different "batch" or code on them - very strange - we know that if the code on the bottom line of the chip has the letters XP at the end - it will not work, if the chip has the code 4Z on the end, then it works perfectly. This is meant to be a standard intel product. Now I know you can not really trust ebay at times, but I can not find anything about a different batch of cards or a different revision.

We are at the point where the laptops are now useless - and the vendor palm offs will begin.

HP will say it is an intel problem. Intel will say it is a HP problem, HP and Intel may then join forces and say it is a Dlink problem because you are using their AP's and routers. In the end, it is still my problem as I have these laptops that simply wont work. We will try everything prior to going back to 2.4ghz - it was really slow, but it sort of got there.

It's either an Intel or Windows problem. You can do a google search on AGN 5100 and see that this is occurring over multiple brands and models. I would bet more on Intel as the problem seems to occur on many versions of Windows. Often, you see it described happening after Windows updates though removing update seems to have no lasting effect.

I don't know how you are dealing with all of these notebooks. It was a nightmare making my one ASUS work with the USB Network Adapter.

Good luck in Vendor Penitentiary. I've been there and they are all innocent.

*UPDATE* problem returned after moving the laptop to a different location. New fix below.

I moved the laptop to add an additional access point profile to it and the problem returned. After another hour of troubleshooting I think I've found something that sticks:

Follow these instructions first:

Right click Computer

Left Click Properties on the sub menu

Left Click Device Manager in top left corner of new window

In device manager window expand "Network Adapters" by left clicking on the little triangle

Right click "Intel(R) Wifi Link 5100 AGN" and left click "uninstall" a new window comes up

The new window is titled "Confirm Device Uninstall" I have inserted it below.

make sure to check the checkbox for "Delete the driver software for this device" is checked. Left click "OK"

While still in device manager left click the "Action" menu and the left click "Scan for hardware changes" Completing this action could take up to 3 minutes and you MUST be connected to a wired internet connection. Your computer will search Window's update for a new driver for the device instead of installing the drivers that the laptop has stored on it. After this completed the driver details were as follows:

Driver Provider: Microsoft

Driver Date: 3/26/2009

Driver Version: 12.4.1.4

Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows

After this had completed the Wireless network device started working. I shut the computer down twice, moved it to different locations and was able to connect to 2 different Wireless N Routers without any troubles. I will update this message if there are any further issues.

____________________________________________Original Message Below, this is the fix that failed._______________________________

I realize I'm reviving a post, but I just finished resolving this issue on a Windows 7x64 system and wanted to supply what I did to fix the problem so others my save their laptops with this issue. :-)

To skip directly to the beginning of what I did to fix the problem proceed to the bold words *FIX STARTS HERE*

When I first got the Dell Studio 1745 laptop it could only see Wireless G, B, A networks with the Intel Wifi Link 5100, it could not see or find Wireless N networks.

First I ran windows updates

I searched for new drivers with the Intel Update software and updated the chipset drivers for the laptop as well as the 2009 drivers for the Intel Wifi Link 5100 to the 2012 drivers.

At this point I could see Wireless N networks, but when I tried to connect to them with the right password it would not connect. At this point I noticed that in the properties of the network connection the device had the wrong security type set in the access point profile (It was set to WPA-Personal, but my other laptop which could connect to the device had automatically detected the security type as WPA2-Personal.

I Changed the security type for the profile on the Dell Studio Laptop, but I still could not connect to the network. At this point I was kind of flumoxed, but I wondered if this was still a driver issue of some kind. I had messed with the Intel Wifi Link 5100 advanced settings in device manager and noticed that if I changed the top property in the list (802.11n Channel Width for band 2.4) from Auto to 20 Mhz only that I could no longer see Wireless N networks again. When I had first started working on the laptop I could not see Wireless N networks at all regardless of how I set this property so this new development seemed odd.

*FIX STARTS HERE* (It's possible some of these other steps had an impact on the problem, but the steps below this are what actually seemed to fix the inability to connect to wireless networks.)

At this point I decided that perhaps the old 2009 drivers had not been removed properly by the Intel Installer for the new drivers so I decided to uninstall the Intel Wifi Link 5100.

Here are the steps I went through for this:

Right click Computer

Left Click Properties on the sub menu

Left Click Device Manager in top left corner of new window

In device manager window expand "Network Adapters" by left clicking on the little triangle

Right click "Intel(R) Wifi Link 5100 AGN" and left click "uninstall" a new window comes up

The new window is titled "Confirm Device Uninstall" I have inserted it below.

make sure to check the checkbox for "Delete the driver software for this device"

After the uninstall completes restart the laptop

The laptop automatically reinstalled the drivers for the device (the 2009 drivers, not the newer ones) after I logged in.

Check the values under the advanced tab of the device and change to the following values if they are different:

802.11n Channel Width for band 2.4 Value = 20 MHz Only

802.11n Channel Width for band 5.2 Value = Auto

802.11n Mode Value = Enabled

Ad Hoc Channel 802.11 b/g Value = 1

Ad Hoc Default Wireless Mode Value = 0.802.11b/g

Ad Hoc Power Management Value = Disabled

Ad Hoc QoS Mode Value = WMM Disabled

Fat Channel Intolerant Value = Disabled

Mixed Mode Protection Value = CTS-to-self Enabled

Roaming Aggressiveness Value = 3. Medium

Throughput Enhancement Value = Disabled

Transmit Power Value = 5. Highest

Wireless Mode Value = 6. 802.11a/b/g

This fixed the inability for the wifi to connect for me. My best guess is a Windows update corrupted the drivers somehow and until you uninstall the corrupted drivers it was not able to connect to access points again. I could be wrong though.

Please note these instructions are for a Windows 7x64 OS. If you are using a different OS the directions would be different. Let me know and I'll try to help if you're having trouble.

Cheers,

Nails

Message was edited by: Tecnails - Updated because original fix did not resolve the problem after moving the laptop and trying to connect to a different wireless access point.

Regret to provide an additional update. The problem reoccurred later on the same day. I could have put in further hours attempting to fix it, but since there was no guarantee this was possible it was decided to switch to a USB wireless network adapter...

Very odd issue. I tested the computer at two different locations and also completely powered it down and brought it back up and it still connected to access points. Then it stopped working as soon as the customer tried to use it. Not sure what to say about these Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN cards. I could not even get the Dell supplied drivers to install on the laptop even though they were listed as being for the exact same model and OS in use...

Good luck to anyone else who runs into these cards. It definitely appears to be some kind of driver issue/Windows update conflict. The card worked fine for quite a while.